VD-Dev may not have revealed a great deal about its forthcoming 3DS shooter IronFall but the game is already causing quite a stir with Nintendo fans.

The indie studio — which was responsible for the technically impressive DS title C.O.P. The Recruit — has been speaking to Nintendo Everything about the development of the title and its future plans.

The game itself is described as being similar to Gears of War and will make full use of the 3DS console's two-screen setup. Stylus control is VD-Dev's "preferred" interface, but co-founder Fernando Velez insists that his team will listen to feedback and include as many control options as possible.

Velez also revealed that the team is aiming for 60 frames per second with the 3D effect enabled, which will be an impressive achievement in itself:

60 frames per seconds is our goal. Shooters offer better playing experience with this frame rate. With the engine we can reach 60 frames per second with and without stereoscopic view.

But if frame rate drops we don’t want to sacrifice the amount of AI, and graphics we have on screens, just because of the stereoscopic view (sometime we have to draw 3 screens, 1 for the left eye, 1 for the right eye, and 1 for the bottom screen where action will also take place sometimes. So maybe we will add a feature that allows in REAL TIME, the player to switch from 60 FPS with the 3D slider pushed down, or 30 FPS with 3D slider pushed up (no need to go to some menu).

Velez is clearly proud of VD-Dev's bespoke game engine, which should provide impressive results:

The engine used in Iron Fall is called the ‘Big Bang Engine’. Its an engine we have programmed from scratch and is optimized for the Nintendo 3DS. It took us several months to write (days and nights), and is written fully in assembly code, using all the ARM optimizations we know. We also have written our own graphics driver for communication with the 3DS GPU to get the best of the handled graphics processor (well at least we hope). The engine has many features, more on this will be shown on a video available on the 28 October.

Interestingly, one of the newest members of VD-Dev — Frederic Zimmer — has joined the studio from Ubisoft where he worked as a technical lead on Watch_Dogs. Given the incredible scope of that title, such news certainly bodes well for IronFall.

Finally, Velez spoke a little about VD-Dev's future plans, including developing for the Wii U and a possible 3DS sequel:

We have to finish IronFall on the 3DS, that takes us all our time, the Wii U seems to be wonderful maybe be we’ll work on it one day.

If IronFall is successful we want to listen what players like or don’t like about the game, and if they want more we could realize their wish.

Do you think VD-Dev can achieve its lofty aims? Are you looking forward to playing IronFall? Tell us by leaving a comment.

Damien has over a decade of professional writing experience under his belt, as well as a repulsively hairy belly. Rumours that he turned down a role in The Hobbit to work on Nintendo Life are, to the best of our knowledge, completely and utterly unfounded.